RSS eyes vacuum in Left citadel
CHANGED REALITY The recent visit of BJP chief to the region points to the Sangh’s deft moves to occupy the propoor space in the name of fighting minority appeasement
The memories are faint but the scars run deep. Exactly 50 years ago, police inspector Sonam Wangdi was killed in Naxalbari in a peasants uprising that quickly singed large swathes of India, killing hundreds. Wangdi was the first casualty of what came to be known as the Naxal movement.
But for Lhadom Wangdi, the policeman’s widow, all the deaths were in vain. “The Naxal movement cannot be justified as only innocent people got killed... my husband was unarmed, his death was a huge loss”.
What stings the 81-year-old most is how her husband’s death was reduced to a footnote in the Naxalbari history. For four decades, she got just ₹1,300 as his monthly pension, which was hiked to ₹3,000 recently. “Is this not ridiculous?”
To avoid painful memories, Lhadom, a doctor by profession, left the sprawling house in Siliguri and settled in Darjeeling with her two children. Sonam won the President’s Police Medal but was quickly forgotten, even in the hill town where a small road is named after him.
Sadananda Roy Chowdhury had no such luck. The 60-year-old lives a stone’s throw away from Naxalbari, ringed by the families of the killers of his grandfather Nagen, the first landlord to be lynched by the Naxalites. The man who murdered Nagen died last month, and his daughter works under Sadananda in a local trade union.
“People don’t like Naxals even now, and they gave our area a bad name. I met many Naxals and asked them was the killing good? They all realise their mistakes.”
The Naxalbari of today bears little signs of the bloody struggle. The Beniajot high school that houses iconic statues of Left ideologues is an evening hang-out for local boys. Most of them haven’t heard of the Naxals.
Do you know what Naxalbari is known for, we ask a group of Class 12 students — “Yes, some terrorists used to live here, but that’s a long time ago,” pat comes the reply.
This exodus of youth support proved disastrous for the Left that was swept out of power six years ago. The CPI (ML) too evokes little reaction in its birthplace. But another organisation is aggressively wooing the youth in the erstwhile Left citadel.
Amit Shah, the BJP president, was in Naxalbari recently. In the heart of the town stands a school run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliates. Started two decades ago, it today boasts of over 500 students up to Class 8 and has plans for expansion.
Its chief and RSS district in charge Sujit Das, a local resident, says: “Despite so many years of Left rule, people suffered. Even today, it is impossible to get medical attention for a woman in labour in Naxalbari. Hence, people come to us.”
In his early thirties, the soft-spoken Das says the RSS is the only force fighting chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s alleged minority appeasement. “Most districts will become Muslim majority in a few years. Bangladeshi immigrants are given OBC cards illegally.”
These charges are not new. Neither is the RSS’ draw in a region riven with poverty and caste. “We are the only organisation where a sweeper can sleep on any bed or eat anywhere. Dalits aren’t discriminated.”
The Sangh has deftly occupied the pro-poor space vacated by a decimated Left. There are four such schools in the area, in addition to a Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram on the outskirts of Siliguri that caters to poor tribals and tea garden labourers.
The government school next door is dilapidated. “Our teachers are punctual, they go door to door to give coaching. The people have rejected Naxalism. The bloodsucking Left has been replaced by nationalism,” says a triumphant Das.